Plants forming hummocks 0.5–0.7 m high, 1.3–1.6 m wide, lightly or not resinous. Culms to c. 1.5 m tall, often much-branched at base. Leaves: basal sheaths often conduplicate, 2–5 mm wide, smooth, margins glabrous or ciliate; orifice bearded with straight hairs to 5 mm long; blade often curved with age, to 40 cm long but often much shorter, 0.7–1 mm wide, ±pungent, glabrous. Panicles narrowly lanceolate, dense to rather loose, 12–25 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide; branches to 7 cm long, ±erect except at anthesis. Spikelets lanceolate, ±terete, 10–18 mm long (excluding awns), appressed to axes; pedicel 1.5–12 mm long; florets 3–7; rachilla internodes c. 2.5 mm long. Glumes ±equal, linear-lanceolate, 9–18 mm long, acuminate, aristulate with awnlet to 3 mm long, scarious, 3–5 (–9)-nerved, glabrous. Callus slender, 1–2 mm long, pungent, bearded. Basal lemma: body (including callus) 5–9 mm long, indurated below and cartilaginous above a transverse abaxial line and adaxial ridge 2–4 mm below lobes, glabrous; lobes tapering to (often recurved or twisted) awns; midlobe (including awn) 9–12 mm long; lateral lobes (with awns) 5–7 mm long. Palea usually 5–5.5 mm long, hyaline near tip, cartilaginous below, glabrous; keels shorter than body, wingless; flaps hyaline at least at margins. Anthers 2.5–3.8 mm long.
Home